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Hugging the Ice

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Hugging the Ice

Photograph by David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes, National Geographic

In a picture that appears in the May 2014 issue of National Geographic magazine, a lone harp seal hugs thinning ice near the Madeleine Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Pups spend their first month on an ice floe, a precarious nursery as ice shrinks in the gulf.

See more pictures from the May 2014 feature story "The Generous Gulf."

The wide angle of this photo really contributes to the impression of the precarious isolation of that harp seal, and the indigo clouds above the horizon look ominously dark and foreboding. I'm guessing the circle of purple light on the ice flows around the seal is perhaps from a search light, on a helicopter perhaps, or maybe an ice breaker ship.